Let It Ride Poker

Let It Ride is a relatively old type of casino poker, but that’s not to say that it also is really exciting to play. There are similarities in the game with Caribbean Poker as well as 5 Card Stud. Well, try it out yourself below and be sure to join the Casino, if you want to play this game for real money!

Let It Ride is an unique type of casino poker that was invented by Shuffle Master Inc, a company specializing at development of card shuffling machines. It was brought to casinos in 1993 and is an already established casino game nowadays with just about any of the land based or online casino offering it as a part of their game variety.

The whole game is based on the popular type of poker, 5 card stud. This is just a variation where players are playing against the house, thus also being set at a disadvantage. Other than that, there are a fair bit of similarities between the two games.

Similarly as in video poker and Caribbean poker, Let It Ride Poker features a payout table that shows the amount of money you can win. The odds of your payout will purely depend on the strength of your hand. Lets follow up with more information about how this game is played as well as the payouts in it.

GamePlay

Each hand of the game starts with players placing wagers. There are three betting boxes at the Let It Ride Table. Usually up to 7 players can play at one table and it looks quite similar to the table of another popular game – BlackJack. There are three circles that represent betting boxes in front of every player. The leftmost of them will usually be marked with a ”$” sign while the two others will be simply marked with ”1” and ”2”. The numbered bets can be taken off at later stages of the game while the bet on the ”$” cannot.

In the beginning of every hand, you will have to place equal wagers on all of the three betting boxes. If you want to bet $10 on the ”$” box, you’ll also have to bet $10 on each of the two other ones, making your total wager $10+$10+$10 = $30.

Once the wagers are up there, cards are dealt. There are two kinds of them – 3 hole cards are dealt to every player that participates in the and two of them are put on the table, as community cards. The dealer himself does not get a hand and you are not playing against him at any point, all you have to do is draw to a qualifying hand that will lead to a payout.

The three cards of yours and two community ones will be used to create a 5 card hand. However, you do not have to risk all three of the $10 bets you just made, in case you get bad cards dealt. This is due to the game being divided into rounds.

Players are allowed to take their bet on the betting box ”1” back after they take a look at the three cards they have been dealt. Alternatively, it can be left there and you sort of ”Let It Ride”.

Players can also take their bet on the betting box ”2” back, after the first of the two community cards has been opened.

Note that taking any of the wagers off won’t end the hand for you, you will just be risking less money. If your hand is not all that strong, you can limit your losses by doing this.

Once both community cards have been opened, it’s time for payouts. In order to qualify for a payout in Let It Ride Poker, you must hold a hand of at least pair of tens or better. This means that any pair that is weaker than tens won’t qualify for a payout and any wagers still up will be lost.

Payouts

Even though the payouts of Let It Ride might differ depending on where you play the game at, most casinos, especially the online ones will pay you according to these odds.

A Pair of Tens or Better – Even Money Odds (1 to 1)

Two Pair – 2:1

Three of a Kind – 3:1

Straight – 5 to 1

Flush – 8 to 1

Full House – 11 to 1

Four of a Kind – 50 to 1

Straight Flush – 200 to 1

Royal Flush – 1,000 to 1

It’s also worth noting that some casinos will feature the so called maximum payout amount. If that’s the case and the maximum payout is $50,000 for example, you won’t get a higher payout for Royal Flush, even if your total wagers exceed $50.

Bonus Bet

There also is a bonus bet that can be played independently of the main wagers. You’ll need to place a chip on either a betting box that is titled as the bonus one or on a red circle box in front of the three usual wagers.

Bonus Bet awards extra payouts on top of any other ones if you draw to a hand of at least straight or better. You can win a payout of up to 2,000 to 1 by betting on this box and hitting a royal flush. The payouts highly differ depending on what’s the casino and game variation you are playing, so we cannot put up the exact one here.

Strategy

While there is no working Let It Ride Strategy that will allow you to swim in the money right away, there is a mathematically correct way for playing your hand and deciding whether to withdraw any of your wagers on the first and second betting boxes or Let Them Ride.

Strategy for Withdrawing the ”1” wager – you should withdraw it unless:

You hold a pair of tens or better already.

You hold three suited cards that are all higher than a ten.

Three suited cards that also create three to a straight (6;7;8 for example) and all of them are higher than a three.

Once you have already seen the first of two community cards, the strategy features some adjustments and you should withdraw the wager on betting box ”2” unless:

You hold a pair of tens, three of a kind or four of a kind already.

You hold four to a flush – four cards of the same suit.

Four to a straight with the lowest card in your hand being higher than a three.

If you follow this rather simple strategy, the house edge in Let It Ride Poker will be only 3,5% and applied to the wager on the betting box marked with ”$”.